


Dream of Mirrors

by Flannigan



Category: Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name
Genre: Gen, I am not a medical professional, Insanity, Kind of Asylum AU, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 07:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5734558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flannigan/pseuds/Flannigan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finas finds himself in a place with no memory how he got there. Who are these people asking him questions? Where is Casimiro?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream of Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2012. Now I'm putting it back up again.

He awoke with a start. 

Everything was black, there was something over his eyes. He was seated in a reclining chair, but he couldn't move. Instinctively he pulled at the restraints on his wrists and ankles before he thought of where he were, and how he'd gotten there.

Someone walked closer. He froze and turned his head in the direction of the sound. 

"Ah, good. Finas is awake. Document the time, nurse." 

"Yes, doctor. Immediately."

"The time, the time? What is the time?" The man said, and a bony hand grabbed the bag over his head along with some of his hair. It was pulled off without care, but he was still blindfolded. He could see just under the edge of the cloth, but all that was there was his own torso.

"07:34 PM, doctor." The female voice said, now on the other side of him. A pen scratched on paper. 

"Where am I?" he demanded and pulled again on the restraints. Leather. He heard metal clatter. Secured with chains.

"He's resisting the restraints, as if he believed he could get out of them with brute strength alone. A sign of delusions of grandeur, perhaps? Or is he really strong enough?" The man clicked his tongue. "Write it down."

"Yes, doctor."

Footsteps walked around him, slow and calculating. 

"Where am I? Answer me!" He couldn't remember what had happened. He'd gotten ready to sleep, presumably fallen asleep, and now this. 

"What do you call yourself?" 

A small hand gripped his wrist, and the inside of his arm tensed up. A tiny pinprick point burned. A needle. He pulled back his arm, but it only caused the needle to bend inside his flesh. It pushed in whatever was contained in the syringe, and pulled out. 

"What do you want?" he snarled. 

His body started to relax against his will as a heaviness settled in him. It wasn't drowsiness, his mind was as sharp as ever, and it raced. His head rested against a support when he couldn't hold it up. 

"What do you call yourself?" The man repeated, now at his side. "There is no use in prolonging this, you know that."

"My name is Finas. You just said it." 

"No, no. What do you call yourself? Your kind, as it were? Other than human. Nurse, start the recording. And turn on the other one." 

"Yes, doctor." 

A machine whirred up somewhere, loud and clumsy. Must be old. Clicks of big buttons and the whirr of a cassette recorder were clearly heard. 

"What do you call yourself, Finas?"

"A... a vampire. Surely you have noticed my lack of pulse." He turned his head to the moving footsteps again. "What do you want from me?"

"Finas, you are aware that it is only the dead who don't have a pulse? Are you saying you are dead?"

"In a sense." He could only reply with a hint of anger. The drug made it difficult to speak. 

"The dead - we bury!" The man's voice rose passionately. "And you are not buried! Yet you claim to be dead!" The man's breath was suddenly in his ear, and he turned away from it. "How can that be?"

"I dug myself up," he said with gritted teeth. The man chuckled and backed away. 

"Write that down, just in case."

"Yes, doctor." 

The doctor didn't speak up again for a moment. The loud machine continued to make the noise, and pens scratched on paper again. 

"How long have you been dead?"

"What do you want from me? Who are you people?" His voice came out alarmed, something he would normally control and hide. "Why are you asking me this?" He then felt a hand on his head, stroking his hair, attempting to soothe him. It wasn't the bony hand of the doctor, nor the petite hands of the nurse who put the needle in him. A third person. "Release me!" He cried and pulled on the restraints, but it was a feeble attempt. 

"We only want to help you, Finas," said the doctor, sounding surprisingly sympathetic. Finas tried to see the man in the thin line visible under the blindfold, but no one was in his field of vision. 

"I don't need help," he said. "Not from you, whoever you are." 

"Hm. We shall see." Creaky wheels rolled closer. The hand on his head went away. "I understand vampires drink blood."

"Yes."

"Do you drink blood?"

"Obviously." 

"Nurse, write that down." 

"Yes, doctor." 

A bony and gloved hand grabbed his jaw and pried a flat metal tool between his teeth. His mouth was forced open and something long and plastic was pushed down his throat. He gagged and clenched his hands. He couldn't form any words that were understood. A cold... something, a liquid poured down into his stomach. It wasn't blood, he'd know the scent. When the tube pulled out he was attacked with a revolting stench. He grew nauseous and any attempts to speak were cut short as his stomach started to do strange things. 

The cold liquid climbed up his throat, he heaved, and threw up. The gross liquid was thick in his mouth, and he spat it out as much as he could. A dark hand holding a paper tissue cleaned up the mess in his face, and dabbed on his chest.

"Stomach acid and expected fluids. But no blood," the doctor said slowly. "Nurse, write that down too..." 

"Yes, doctor." 

"Tell me now-" He heaved again. "What do you want from me? Tell me or I will-"

"Will what?!" The doctor's voice rose high again. "Drink our blood? Will you break free with your strength and hypnotize us to do your bidding?!" Another chuckle. "What we want from you is cooperation. ... You are a danger to others, you see." He spoke as if talking to a child. 

"Do you think I wanted to be like this?!" He snarled with as much bile as possible.

"You shrug away from sunlight, refuse to eat and stay awake all night. You barely show emotion other than anger, and don't recognize anyone. You injured your wife - claiming she was prey; she smelled too good and you couldn't control yourself! You are a danger to others and to yourself!" The doctor's bony hand gripped his arm and squeezed. "We only want to help. Others have failed, but I won't give up, I promise. ... As long as I'm being paid, of course." 

"What do you know about my wife?!" He snapped up in the direction his face should be. The hand patted his arm a few times.

"Nurse, roll up the electroshock machine."

"Yes, doctor." 

He stiffened and his struggles with the restraints picked up. He forced himself to put in all of his remaining strength, but not even the leather seemed to budge. He'd managed to avoid that machine through all of his existence, and he wasn't planning on having it used on him any time soon. The loud machine he'd heard for the past minutes rolled closer.

His skin prickled as his hair was pulled out of the way, and a piece of metal was put on each of his temple. The third pair of hands held his head firmly in place, and stopped him from squirming away. 

"There's no need for panic. Relax, and it'll be over in a tic." The doctor said with a dark tinge in his voice. Before he could answer a rubber piece was forced inside of his mouth. 

"Nurse, will you- Or perhaps you would like to do the honours, sir? ... Hah, don't look so angry, I assure you, this is the best treatment available. Nurse, start the procedure. A little higher than last time."

"Yes, doctor." 

He clenched his eyes shut, and a flip was switched.

A dozen crackling explosions set off inside his head, travelling around in his brain and left a burning, numb sensation. It was everywhere, it spread through his body, a new explosion going off with each struck nerve. His body jolted violently, and the restraints was the only thing keeping him down. If he hurt himself with the thrashing, he didn't feel it. His jaw was forced to tense and he bit down into the rubber piece, teeth piercing it. He could swear he felt his skin shrink and tried to crawl its way off of him. It felt like it went on for an eternity.

Then it stopped, he slumped limply against the chair and his head fell into the hold of the man behind him. The blindfold was pushed askew by the third person's fingers, and he glanced up with a barely open eye, which snapped fully open and stared.

"Ghaff-ero?" He mumbled despite the thing in his mouth. The one holding his head looked down into his face, into his eye. It was Casimiro. Alive. With healthy, brown skin. Two brown eyes – one a shade lighter than the other.

Casimiro looked as if sick and pained, but it turned into shock. The rubber piece was quickly pulled out of his mouth, and the metal pieces on his temples thrown to the floor. 

"What did you say?" Casimiro's voice shook. 

"Cas? What... is going on? Why are you here...?" 

Casimiro's eyes quickly watered up. 

"You remember me... Oh mio Dio, you remember me, finally!" Casimiro's hands stroked over his head several times as he gave a full-blown grin with tears running down his face. "I knew you'd come back..." 

The doctor clapped and made a high pitched noise. 

"Aaah, this is fantastic! Adelaide, Adelaide! Document the time! Progress, at last! After five years of failure!"

"Yes, doctor Achenleck. Congratulations."

The nurse and the doctor continued to talk, their names barely registered in his mind. He just stared at Casimiro. What kind of trick was this? This had to be a trick, oh mercy, it simply couldn't be that he- 

What if-

"Finas..." Casimiro smiled and shook his head, as if he was still in shock. His teeth were white and flat. Suddenly the doctor stormed forward with a cassette recorder in his hand. 

"Are you dead or alive? Vampire or human? Quickly, answer me!" 

“What?”

“You're in an asylum because of severe delusions, schizophrenia, DID and Renfield's syndrome, believing you are a vampire...! Do you still believe that or are you cured?!” The doctor hissed.

He closed his eyes hard and shook his head. 

This was a dream. This had to be. Going to sleep was the last thing he remembered; it had to be a very vivid, very lucid dream. 

There was no other explanation. Couldn't be any other.

But the hard, rhythmic beating in his chest that seemed to appear from nowhere, or he just noticed it, told him there was another explanation. He opened his eyes wide and clenched his fingers hard around the arm supports. A pain in his chest caused him to breathe in, he felt the cool air fill his lungs, and he was forced by his own body to breathe deep and fast. 

"Aah, haah, I, naah, no, I- This isn't- Cas, help me-" Casimiro's hands moved over his head, cupped his cheek and brushed over his hair. His eyes rolled up in his head, his hurting body tensed up, each muscle seemed to contract. 

Leftover liquid began to pour out from the edge of his mouth. It filled up his throat, he choked on his words, his throat tightened up, he couldn't breathe. Again everything went dark, this time because his eyes closed. He went silent, head lolling to the side like deadweight. 

"Finas? Finas?! What's going on, do something, doctor! Finas! No, not again, not another time- Finas!!" Casimiro slapped the side of his face numerous times, but it faded away, along with everything else. 

Then he slapped it with force tenfold, his eyes flew open and he jerked with a sudden start. 

"Finas?! Wake up already, for all that is unholy- Finas- Shit, what's gotten into you?" Casimiro stood at his side and leaned over him.

"I can't- it's not-!" He choked out, louder than he thought he could. When had the restraints been removed? 

"Calm down!" Casimiro's hands were on his shoulders. "Breathe deep and calm down. What's wrong?"

His hands gripped Casimiro's. They were cold like stone. He looked up at the other man, and was met with a concerned, mismatched look. But just a moment ago-

"Cas? Wh-what happened? Where's the- You're not-" 

"Whoa-woah, slow down!" Casimiro interrupted and pushed him down in the seat with firm but gentle hands. He smiled, fangs showing. "It wasn't real, whatever it was. You were sleeping, started making these noises and called for me to help you, so I slapped you. So calm down, you're OK." 

"...It was a... a dream?" He swallowed and blinked hard a few times.

"You tell me," Casimiro frowned. "Didn't think we could dream, but obviously I was mistaken. Seems like it's a pretty rare thing, then." 

Finas sighed, closed his eyes and turned down his head, pressing his face to Casimiro's arms he still hadn't let go of. 

“Oh, mercy...”

Casimiro pulled him up into a sitting position. Finas put his feet on the floor and moved his hands to hold his aching head. He had a splitting headache. Casimiro's arm moved around his shoulders, making him lean on him. 

“What was it about?”

"It was just a... horrible nightmare." He felt nothing beat in his chest, there was nothing forcing him to breathe. He was a vampire again. Casimiro was a vampire again. For the first time he felt relieved to know that fact. "I'd be glad to never have another dream, ever."

"No wonder though. When you chose to sleep in a seat like this. Look, it's got restraints and everything." Casimiro showed him a ring of leather, secured with chains. He felt a twist in his stomach and looked away. 

"What's the time?" 

"Around eight. Wanna head out?"

He nodded. 

"I'd like that very much." 

Casimiro leaned forward and looked him straight in the face.

"You look a little out of it. Sure you're awake yet?" Casimiro said with a smirk, meant it as a joke, but he shook his head with downcast eyes. 

It had felt so real, so incredibly real. The pain had been real. The smells, the touches, the sounds, not one moment had he thought they weren't real. Was he really awake right now? ...Or was this the very vivid, very lucid dream?

Was this the real him? Was this the real world, even? He looked back at his companion since so many years, and another kind of pain appeared in his chest. Was this the real Casimiro?

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Iron Maiden's "Dream of Mirrors" on repeat when I wrote this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwT9G6t-SKI
> 
> Thanks a lot for reading, I would really appreciate feedback if you liked or didn't like it.
> 
> My art/fic tumblr is it-s-blue-ink.tumblr.com


End file.
